Chaos Space Marine Lord Painting

[Groat]

So I've been collecting miniatures for years but I'm a total poser when it comes to actually painting and playing the game - I keep meaning to try to try, but things just get in the way somehow (too busy too often). I've gotten a good burst of motivation at the moment, so I'm trying out a few things in the past week.

I've had a Chaos Space Marine Lord metal blister pack and the trusty CSM Command Sprue with some extra heads. The head that the CSM Lord comes with is one of those stupid topknot + bare head bits that looks absolutely ridiculous. My first step involved attempting to glue it all together with my superglue I purchased 5+ years ago.

Immediate valuable lesson learned: Superglue has a shelf life after you open it of about 1-2 years. One fresh pack of superglue later (after I dropped it, broke the arms off and broke the plastic head a little), I decided to pin it (I have a pin vice and a pile of paperclips) and chopped off the broken parts of the helmet.

First look at it:
http://www.madnesslabs.com/images/csm1sm.jpg

Okay, all assembled, not doing anything fancy yet with basing (I've got some gravel stuff lying around which I guess I'll glue after I finish getting paint all over the place). Next step after letting all the glue settle is to spray paint it black:

http://www.madnesslabs.com/images/csm2sm.jpg
http://www.madnesslabs.com/images/csm3sm.jpg

I'm already very pleased with how that head came out. That's a Tzeentch head from the command sprue with the extra horns clipped off and shaved down (as one of 'em broke and hey, it kind of looks better this way).

Next up (which I did last night), drybrushed the entire thing with tin bitz (didn't take a picture of that), then immediately followed up with some boltgun metal + some of the Dark Green Vallejo paint I've got for the cloak. I've decided to also go ahead with making it a Glorious Golden Fist.

http://www.madnesslabs.com/images/csm4sm.jpg

Four images per post, so here's the colored rear shot:
http://www.madnesslabs.com/images/csm5sm.jpg

I've tricked my girlfriend into painting some of my space marines I got with a Black Reach set (she did them CMYK), so I'm currently debating what color I want to make the helmet that he's clutching in his Glorious Golden Fist. I'm also planning on moving forward using 4-5 different shades of green in progressively higher hues as I continue working on this. The other color I'm going to incorporate is Orange:
The primary scheme I'm working on is Metal + Orange + Green for highlights, with lots of detail within that.

So, any immediate feedback or advice? I honestly am completely winging it and have never really accomplished much of anything with painting my miniatures thus far - I always get derailed, but I'm really enjoying how this is turning out and can easily adapt the scheme to the rest of my army. I'm EXTREMELY pleased with how that helmet matches the body (it really has started to pop).

Thanks all.

[mstingray]

Nice work, I like the cloak. Have you though about doing a specific legion?
I think the head really works with the model as you said, I don't like the bare head on the model either.

[wittdooley]

Well, my first recommendation when you're starting to paint is to take a peek at some color theory stuff, as that will make your models look a bit better due to the colors "meshing" better. Here's a link that describes it fairly well:

http://www.worqx.com/color/complements.htm

I like how the helmet looks on the model!

[Duke]

Kudos, you have taken a model that I never really liked and made it cool. I think the head is the biggest thing I like about it...good jbo

duke